Robo-One: Japan & Korea's Robot Tournament @ TechTakeaway.com

The Robo-One competition is a popular, regularly televised event held in Japan & Korea in which people bring their home-built, kits and modified humanoid robots to compete in a number of events, largely consisting of martial arts or wrestling style fights in a ring where the robots compete to topple the opposition.

The first Robo-One took place in Feb 2002 in Japan, the original robots were mostly home built using high-torque digital servo motors. Japanese company Kondo made very good servos for robotics and were hugely popular among Robo-One builders, in 2004, Kondo released it's KHR-1 kit robot designed to compete in the Robo-One J-Class events.

There are three main categories of events at the Robo-One tournament;

King Kizer jumps in the air at Robo-One 10, Sept 16th 2006 in Nagai, Japan >>

Demonstration / Show
Before qualifying for the later fighting rounds, the robots must perform a pre-programmed routine such as in an agility demonstration or a sequence of martial arts movements. Points are awarded by judges for elegance, fluid movement, agility, style and other categories in order to find the winner.

Remote Control

Ivre vs King Kizer, Championship Final Match at Robo-One 10 >>

The RC category is where the robots are directly controlled by their owners through remote control, triggering pre-programmed movements and moving around under the control of a human until one robot is defeated. The robots are usually modified so that they can be controlled using Bluetooth, often using a game controlled connected to a laptop that sends the instructions through Bluetooth to the robot. Infrared controllers, like those supplied with the Robonova-1, will not work in the competition arena because of the lights and interferance, radio frequency remote control can be used as an alternative to Bluetooth.

Autonomous

Special Event: Ball Throwing, Autonomous Operation - Kawasaki, Japan, August 2006 >>

Robots in this category fight without the intervention or control of humans. The robots are heavily pre-programmed and use motion sensors, sonar, tilt sensors and many others to dynamically sense their environment and act accordingly. Tilt sensors in a robot can tell it when it has fallen over and is lying on its front or back, this can then automatically trigger a movement to stand up again. Motion & Sonar sensors can allow the robot to sense when the other robot is within striking range, and where it is positioned relative to itself, using this the robot can be programmed to head towards the nearest thing it senses, or the thing that is moving, and attack with kung fu or a wrestling take-down when it is in range.

Robots in this category can be extremely intelligent, using many sensors and lots of programming to outwit their opponents. There are also contests like accurate ball throwing in the Automonous category.

Yokozuna Great: A popular Robo-One contender

Yokozuna Great: A popular Robo-One contender

The most fiercely contested event is the Remote Control category, contenders spend countless hours developing their fighting robots and stay within the Robo-One specifications. As the roboteers gain experience, they can program their robot with the movements which are the most useful to them in combat.

Many robots that compete in Robo-One are built based on a kit robot like KHR-1, 2HV/1HV, Robonova-1, Manoi AT01/PF01 and Bioloid. They can be heavily modified, adding extra servos, sensors, custom brackets & frames and of course fancy paint-jobs, some don't resemble the original robot at all when they are finished. Many robot competitors though are purely custom built by robotics enthusiasts, but use the same digital servo motors like those made by Kondo and other companies.

Rook's Pawn Warms Up Watch vid >>

Robo-One style competitions are slowly making their way to the wider world, last year the RoboGames 2006 was held in San Francisco, and there is a serious contender from America; Rook's Pawn, an amazing modified Robonova-1 with 20 Degrees of Freedom (DOF). The modifications on Rook's Pawn include; a rotating waist, rotating head and powerful claw-like grippers that can hold the robot's own weight hanging from a rope.

Links:
Robo-One Korea Site (English & Korean)
Robo-One Official Site (Japanese only)